Dancing On The Tip (Cozy In The Rocket)
by Everion Radnor
Summary: Perceptions change. Russia does not. (One-shot for my friend. I own nothing.)


Happy birthday to my personal Russian squeeze toy, Yuki.  
I'll finish my fics, people, don't worry. I have to find my muse first.  
And this America isn't you hamburger-loving hero. To paraphrase, he's a bitch.  
Enjoy!

* * *

November 20th, 1962  
Moscow.

The sun shone weakly in the grey skies, reflecting the mood of the man sitting in the leather chair and twirling the quarter in his fingers. Beside him, Ayn Rand's _Atlas _lay abandoned. His hair stuck up in each and every direction from his running his fingers through it.

He had a strong urge to slide a knife into an American's spinal cord. Preferably blonde, blue-eyed and bespectacled.

Braginski slid down until he was nearly level with his seat and put a hand over his eyes. His last meeting with the blonde bastard hadn't gone well. They'd ended up in a fight in front of England, who was pretty good at knocking people out when he wanted to, and not just with his culinary skills. Yanking his silky hair back, pushing him down and him reacting by digging his fingers into his hipbones and knocking his knees out from under him. They landed messily on the floor, Alfred on his chest, eyes narrowed to slits and hands firmly on his throat.

He most likely had the Englishman to thank for not being asphyxiated to death.

Then again, England was the one who taught Alfred how to fight, so he could safely blame the indigo bruises that peppered his torso and throat on him as well.

Yao had told him once that he and the American were the same.

"The same drive, ambition…they're all there within you, Ivan. One of you will pay the price for this greed one day."

_Oh, wise old Yao_, he thought. _Look at you now_.

60,000 missiles really were a bit too much. But, for now, they'd manage.

* * *

25th December, 1991  
Moscow.

The Soviet Union watched his state fade and those closest to him, leave. He watched Gorbachev become useless, declare his position extinct, handing over his power and his codes to a president who may or may not be a puppet for the others to dance.

He could already feel the burning at the base of his spine, the agony when ideals shifted and loyalties changed. He could feel shame, that a man-child could hold on to his country and he, nearly three millennia old, couldn't.

Fallacies, fallacies everywhere and he could do nothing to stop it.

He wanted to howl.

* * *

He lay spread-eagled on his bed, the fever ravaging every cell of his body. The curtains were drawn, so the room was shadowed.  
_Breathe, _he reminded himself in between not screaming, _you'll be fine._  
Last time, his sisters had been with him. They never mentioned it when it was over, not even Natalya, with her constant obsessing over him.

He was rather glad they weren't here. He wanted to be alone.  
74 years didn't dull the pain any less than the vodka made him forget.

He made it to the toilet before emptying the contents of his stomach into the bowl.

It didn't faze him much when he stumbled back inside to find someone sitting on his bed, straight-backed and still. The world was blurry, sticky and uncomfortably hot and he couldn't find the strength to stand up.

He found his cheek smushed to the blessedly cold floor. When had he gotten there?

There was a sigh and a pair of hands lifted him by his arms, dragged him to the bed and bodily dumped him on it. Suddenly, there was something cold wiping his sweaty face and neck and he whimpered, aching for more of it.

There was a cold compress laid across his forehead and he grabbed the hand that did so.

"You're not Natalya," he said.

The hand he'd grabbed pushed his down to the bed and extricated itself from his grip.

"I'm not," it agreed.

"What are you doing here, Jones?"

The bed shifted and Ivan idly wondered whether Alfred would kill him now.

"Capitalism… can be generous by virtue of surplus, Braginski."

"I don't want what you're selling, American."

"You've already bought it."

The compress on his forehead was changed.

"Don't you have better things to do than sneak in here and make a mess of things?"

"Oh, certainly. You won't exist tomorrow. I might as well pay my respects to the man who occupied my attention for half a century before he rots in his grave."

Ivan swung upwards, hard.

There was a hiss. "Damn you," the young man swore. "Don't bite the hand that feeds you, you stupid son of a bitch."

"I don't have a mother, you capitalist whore."

"You know what? I'm leaving."

"It's not like anybody invited you here in the first place. Get out."

Everything was quiet for the span of six heartbeats. He felt the dip on the bed disappear and a thin coverlet cover him.

The door opened.

"Merry Christmas, Russia. Don't die. I won't have anyone to play with then."

The door closed and Ivan was left alone in the shadows, grasping at something his fevered mind had thought, but not seen.

* * *

Rise, reign, fall. That's what all empires did.  
America was a crumbling mess, poison running through tanned skin and sparkling glass windows in concrete monsters. Below it remained little of the Dream.

When the plane destroyed the buildings, Alfred spoke of peace and his eyes sang of murder.

The world was his battleground and he intended to lay waste to it all.

* * *

30th December, 2012  
St. Petersburg

"You are like an annoying fly."

Alfred shrugged noncommittally, staring out at the snowflakes. "I talk a lot."

His eyes traced the contours of his broad shoulders, down to his slender waist and mile long legs, accentuated by his beautifully tailored pants.

He moved closer and put his hand on Alfred's waist. He was surprised at himself. Didn't he hate him?

He must have been thinking out loud, because Alfred set his glass down and leaned into his arm.

"Perceptions change. And nuclear war didn't stop you from being cozy in the rocket now, didn't it?"

"Way to ruin the mood, you child."

"I'm not the one in a perpetual priapic state."

"Well, I hated your present. Miley Cyrus? Really?"

"I had to embarrass you somehow."

"You only embarrassed yourself."

"You can throw them away. I don't really care."

"You do, Alfred. You do very much. In fact, that's why you like cleaning up our messes. You like being acknowledged, petted, and praised. Attention? You live on it."

"We all do."

The American rubbed the back of his neck. Ivan pushed his hand away and gently stroked the area, nearly hidden by the collar.

"I didn't know my birthday was a black-tie event. I'm flattered."

Alfred purred as the other man's fingers kneaded the base of his skull. He turned his head, leaning back and smiled lazily, his eyes deep, dark navy stars in the cold night.

"Your life is nothing but a black-tie event. And I have front-row tickets to it."

Ivan glared at the salacious, impertinent, uncouth _boy._

"Oh, baby," he grinned wider now, "don't dump my body in the river; its cold outside."

"I should put duct tape on your mouth."

Alfred licked his lips. "You'd miss these then."

"I would?"

"Yes, my darling murderer," he pulled the other's head down, "you would, very, very much."


End file.
